5 easy ways to improve your marriage today

Between taking care of the kids, cleaning the kitchen for (what seems like) the 8th time today, and running to get groceries, putting work into your marriage can seem like just another item on the task list. To make that a little easier, here are 5 ways you can make your marriage stronger today.

1. Recalibrate your view of your spouse

Take a minute to remember that your spouse isn’t a roommate or friend. They are the one person you will journey through life with. They are the one you’ve vowed to love, care for, support, and serve—even when they don’t deserve it. They need you to have the marriage-mindset every time you think of them.

2. Show affection

A gentle touch on the hand, a kiss with real effort behind it, a hug that communicates genuine love and care without a word. These always make a deposit in your spouse’s love bank.

3. Put a date night on the calendar

It doesn’t have to be tonight, this weekend, or even in the next month, but time for the two of you to be alone together is essential. Always have a date night on the calendar of something you can both look forward to doing together.

4. Turn off the screens for an hour

Talk to each other. Pinterest might have more fun ideas than your spouse does, binging on Netflix shows might be more entertaining than hearing about your spouses day at work, but Pinterest and Netflix won’t be able to run to the pharmacy for you the next time you’re under the weather.

5. Take selfies together

It might sound strange, but something good happens for my wife and me when we take pictures together. We smile more, we have memories to look back on, we have laughs over the ones that didn’t turn out. It’s just another little document of the life we share together.